1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric motor and more particularly to a method and apparatus for stripping an electric motor armature in an efficient, effective and inexpensive manner to salvage and recycle the armature.
Direct current electric motors have become very popular over the years particularly in the automotive field where many different electric motors are employed in an automobile to provide many conveniences such as window lifts, seat actuators, door locks, heater motors and radiator fans. In fact, the number of electric motors utilized in each new automobile necessitated an automation in the production of these electric motors. With high production of electric motors in the millions, the rejection of a small fractional part or percentage because of manufacturing defects such as shorts, open circuits and other electrical defects, results in a large number of armature rejects. The number of rejected armatures is significantly high and therefore very costly to merely discard the rejected armatures as waste.
2. Prior Art
In the past, in the salvaging of an armature, steps were taken to chuck the armature in a lathe and to use a single edge cutting tool to cut the windings from the armature. This method also produced a number of further rejects than cannot be tolerated, for example, the armature shaft may be bent by the cutting action of the single edge cutting tool. Other methods and apparatus for stripping armatures are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,218,818 and 1,608,350. However, these methods, while satisfactory for their intended purpose, cannot meet the demands for mass recycling and salvaging of armatures as required in the automotive industry.
None of the aforesaid prior art attempts and no other means are known to the applicants to utilize high production tenchique in the salvaging and recycling of armatures.